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Yearly Archives: 2008

Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith also responds to Gov. David Paterson’s call for cuts. Clearly, New York faces extraordinary financial challenges in this fiscal year and the coming year. Senate Democrats are committed to working with Governor Paterson and other legislative leaders to rebuild New York’s economy and create good jobs that will last. Spending […] More »

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver uses uncharacteristically strong language in the statement responding to Gov. David Paterson’s call for budget cuts. (how often do you see the Speaker using phrases like “bold and aggressive action” and “make deep cuts in spending?”) But Silver also emphasized the need to make sure that this is a “shared sacrifice […] More »

This is pretty neat. A campaign volunteer for Democrat Jim Gennaro, who is challenging Sen. Frank Padavan in Queens has hand-inked these comic strip-style issue flyers. The artist, Michael Hannibal, is a local from Jamaica Estates. He did the first strip unsolicited and showed it to the campaign. “We loved it so much we asked […] More »

President Bill Clinton has voiced a robocall on behalf of Democratic Sen. Bill Stachowski, who is being challenged by Republican celebrity cold case detective Dennis Delano. Stachowski is in the fight of his career – a recent Siena poll found that he had a double-digit deficit behind Delano. More »

Here’s the video of Gov. David Paterson talking about how when it comes to budget cuts, he wants “prose, not poetry.” Note: I’m not sure how that darn flip4mac watermark ended up on the video – will look for a fix. In the meantime, my apologies for the distraction. More »

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos reacts to Paterson’s announcement this morning by reiterating his previous position on education cuts and raising taxes. This conflicts directly with Paterson’s call to cuts in all parts of the budget. Here’s the statement: As I have said all along, New York State must not balance its budget by offloading […] More »

As if that $47 Billion 4-year budget deficit wasn’t depressing enough. Now comes news from Comptroller Tom DiNapoli that the state retirement fund is down 20 percent since April. The comptroller stressed that the drop will have no decline on benefits, which are constitutionally protected and that local governments won’t feel the effect until March […] More »

With a week left before Election Day, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., is pushing her supporters to donate to lawmakers in tough reelection races — and she’s including freshman Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand on the list. Clinton’s political action committee, “HillPAC,” e-mailed supporters Tuesday with the senator’s call to help “three great members of Congress” in “hotly […] More »

When asked about Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith’s commitments NOT to cut education funding, Paterson responded: Listen. There’s an election right now. Whatever Sen. Skelos and Sen. Smith say right now is fine with me. People campaign in poetry, and that’s fine. But both Sen. Skelos and Sen. Smith […] More »

Gov. David Paterson delivered some bad news about the state’s fiscal outlook and has said that there will be cuts in every segment of the budget. “We need real leadership. We’re going to have to put politics aside…Don’t get me wrong. There will be hard and painful cuts. There is no segment of this budget […] More »

Plumbers may be political trade of choice this election season, but in New York, the carpenters are quietly working to help the Senate GOP keep the majority. The New York City District Council of Carpenters – which represents 18,000 members in the city – has endorsed and is putting resources behind the incumbent Republican senators: […] More »

Good morning, boys and girls. Here are today’s stories… The state alleges that surgical centers overbilled $13.8 million to the health plan that insures state workers. Courts are seeing a rush of voters who aren’t on registration rolls. A fact check on Albany DA challenger Roger Cusick’s ad. A court allows people to vote in […] More »

Following a report in the NY Post that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is giving up on a millionaire’s tax, Silver spokesman Dan Weiller confirmed the report, but only for this year. From the statement: Speaker Silver and members of the Assembly majority are committed to working with Governor Paterson and the State Senate to address […] More »

The biggest photo on a new mailer from Mike Russo is of the candidate and his former boss, Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand. Next to the picture, above Gillibrand’s signature, is this quote: “As my district director in the 20th Congressional District, Mike Russo was innovative, selfless and strong voice for our ten upstate counties. I know […] More »

PEF Rep - 30 yr member: The three years of work done and paid for by the members Shredded. Is this rhe heart of a...

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Capitol Confidential gathers the best coverage of New York politics and puts it all together. Each section - Capitol, The State Worker, New York on the Potomac, and Voices - represents a unique facet of the political scene. The Capitol section features coverage from the Times Union Capitol bureau. The State Worker is dedicated to state worker issues. New York on the Potomac offers news of interest to New Yorkers from Washington. And Voices features the best of everything else, pointing you to columnists and bloggers from across the Web.